Archive of posts with tag 'Simplicity'

The Simplest Thing That Could Possibly Work →

January 14, 2025 • #

This latest issue of Res Extensa riffs on an idea from wiki-inventor Ward Cunningham:

“Given what we’re trying to do now, what is the simplest thing that could possibly work?” In other words, let’s focus on the goal. The goal right now is to make this routine do this thing. Let’s not worry about what somebody reading the code tomorrow is going to think. Let’s not worry about whether it’s efficient. Let’s not even worry about whether it will work. Let’s just write the simplest thing that could possibly work.

I love this. I’m a huge proponent of getting started on something as an antidote to stuckness. Writer’s block, uncertainty, fogginess. There’s no panacea that’ll give you all the answers, but the best tool for clarity is action. Getting started is the fastest path to finding what’s next.

When Cunningham says “the mere act of writing it organized our thoughts,” he’s speaking to this idea that it’s rarely possible to know the specifics of the goal (or the means to get there) until you get started. Starting on the thing kickstarts the discovery engine.

Nearly every time I’m doing anything creative — building a software feature, writing an article, building something in my shop — the final state ends up somewhere other than what I predicted at the start. During the process of making, I learned things, or I came to realize things I didn’t know I needed or wanted.

When you’re just getting started, you don’t know what the possibilities are yet. To know what to build, you’ve got to start building.

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February 26, 2024 • #

Simplicity is the hallmark of truth — we should know better, but complexity continues to have a morbid attraction. When you give for an academic audience a lecture that is crystal clear from alpha to omega, your audience feels cheated and leaves the lecture hall commenting to each other: ‘That was rather trivial, wasn’t it.’ The sore truth is that complexity sells better.

—Edsger Djikstra

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February 10, 2024 • #

Simplicity on the Other Side of Complexity →

My latest post on Res Extensa:

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The Other Side of Complexity →

February 9, 2024 • #

The latest issue of Res Extensa, on the path from “simplistic” to “simple” understanding, over the hill of complexity:

Superficial simplicity is our first impression, a naïve jump to conclusion. Simplicity on the other side of complexity is wisdom. Wisdom comes to us in rules of thumb, heuristics, knowledge gained from hard-won experience. The experience comes from grappling with the complexity so we can distill with simplicity.

Profound solutions are simple, but they’re post-complexity simple. Elegant, robust solutions are rooted in deep understanding. Whether they’re laws, books, or products, the ones with the most impact climbed over the complexity hill for us.

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Simplicity on the Other Side of Complexity

April 21, 2023 • #

“I would not give a fig for the simplicity on this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity.”

What a great line from Oliver Wendell Holmes.

When you think you’re coming up with “simple” responses to complex problems, make sure you’re not (as Bob Moesta says) creating “simplicity on the wrong side of the complexity.”

What we really want is to work through all the tangled complexity ourselves as we’re picking apart the problem and designing well-fit solutions.

A great (simple) solution to a complex problem can be that way because someone’s taken on the burden of detangling the complexity first.

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